The man raised his chin, and the bodyguards behind Roman
kicked at the backs of his knees and shins.
Roman was caught off guard and fell to the ground.
He was so angry to be so humiliatingly forced to kneel at someone’s feet that he didn’t care about anything else. He raised his head, gritted his teeth, and glared at the man in front of him.
“How dare you treat me like this?” Roman started to stand back up, trying to keep the look of pain off his face; his finger wound was pure agony. “I will find out who you are, and I’ll kil Before Roman could finish his threat, the masked man had his knife out. Faster than Roman could blink, the man had sliced through his wrist tendons, leaving Roman’s hands dangling uselessly.
The pain and shock was so fierce, Roman didn’t have time to process it before his m outh was slashed, followed by slashes on the tops of his thighs-clear down to the bone.
The man didn’t even blink as he did all of this, his eyes shining cold and emotionless with his wolf.
Once Roman was lying on the ground, trembling in shock, the masked man stood over him. He threw the knife aside, and then one of his bodyguards handed him a handkerchief.
“You kissed her with that fil thy m outh of yours. Touched her, hugged her, and even made her sit on your lap. Now, you’ll never kiss her, touch her, or make her sit on your lap ever again.”
The man calmly and deliberately wiped Roman’s blood from his hands.
“Sir, it’s time to go,” one of the bodyguards nudged.
The man nodded slightly, then turned and left without a backward glance at Roman.
In what seemed like a choreographed dance, all of the vehicles left the garage as suddenly as they’d surrounded Roman.
Roman was left, bleeding out and shaking on the cold concrete.
I waited in the hotel room all night, but Roman didn’t come.
At three in the morning, I was so sleepy that I couldn’t force myself to stay away.
I didn’t wake up until the next afternoon, and the Knight pack bidding conference was the first thing I thought about.
Quickly, I tidied myself up and was about to leave the hotel when my cell phone vibrated.
A message from Greyson.
Watch the news.
Just as I was wondering what he wanted me to see, he sent a link.
The headline read, “Roman Starke, Beta of the Starke Pack,
Injured Last Night.”
My eyes widened, and I opened my phone’s browser to look for more information.
More headlines popped up, and I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my face, they were so wide with shock. “The Starke Pack Business Scandal Exposed” and “The Starke Pack’s Company Stock Plunges Overnight.”
I clicked on each one, only to discover that Roman had returned because someone had done one he ll of a number him.
Someone had managed to get into the hospital and snap a picture of him lying in a hospital bed. His mo uth was covered with a bandage, and the picture showed bandaged hands,
wrists, and legs.
Whoever had wanted to hurt Roman wanted to hurt him BAD.
They’d slashed his mo uth, cut his index finger off, sliced through all the tendons and nerves in his wrists, and then made deep cuts on the tops of his thighs.
Their intent was to hurt him, maim him in ways that his wolf wouldn’t be able to heal from…but also to leave him alive.
The Starke pack and the local elders for the Midwest packs sent special shifter investigators to search for perpetrator, but the surveillance cameras in the parking garage and on the surrounding roads were all destroyed, making it impossible to find the culprit.
After Roman’s accident, it was as though Pandora’s box had been open, and all of Roman’s vile misdeeds were coming to light. Women had begun speaking to reporters about his “exploits” and sharing how he had abused them and forced himself upon them.
The comments on the articles were full of people saying that Beta Starke had gotten exactly what he deserved,
To complicate matters even more, the Starke pack’s business practiced were exposed. They were involved in a lot of illegal activity-cases of corruption, bribery, tax evasion… the list went on.
Overnight, the Starke pack went from being respected and doing well, to going through a complete collapse. Their stock plunged when the markets opened, the Alpha was arrested,
and the only reason the Beta wasn’t arrested was because he was in a hospital bed.
I read through article after article, absolutely stunned.
Someone else had been able to do even more than I’d be able to dream of doing. They’d exposed so much more than I would have been able to.
What kind of power could defeat one of the biggest packs in Arcadia in just one night?
I remembered what Greyson had said last night-that Roman would not come back.
Obviously, I hadn’t taken him seriously, but now…
How did he know in advance that Roman would not come back and be so sure of it?
Could it be…he did this?
If it was the masked man who had done it, then my previous speculation that the masked shifter was a friend or packmate of Roman was wrong.
Now, I was back at the drawing board with trying to figure out just who this Greyson was. My gut was telling me that it was him who’d attacked Roman and brought down his pack…
which was even more confusing to figure out. The only person I could think of with enough power to ruin the Starke pack so swiftly was Griffon-and the man last night wasn’t Griffon.
Relief swept through me, though, when I realized I didn’t have to deal with Roman now, didn’t have to worry about Harper’s safety.
However, as soon as I escaped from Roman, I had another creep to deal with…someone I was afraid was even worse.
After thinking for a while, I went to find the hotel manager so I could see the surveillance footage.
Just my luck. The only footage was of Roman entering and exiting the room. Anything that would have included the masked man had been deleted. There was no proof anyone had been in the room with me other than Roman. I had nothing to take to pack police, and no evidence of his abuse, since he’d placed me in the bathtub.
However…I did have the WhatsApp ID and his messages. That had to count for something, right?
Resolved, I went down to the pack police station to file a report. Of course, the shifter police weren’t always known for being particularly helpful to humans, but I had to at least try.
I provided the man’s phone number, WhatsApp ID, and all the texts he had sent to me. However, the police said that the phone number was not traceable, and the IP address of his WhatsApp account was run through a VPN.
To top it all off? The police said that I was the one who took the initiative to invite him to the hotel. Even if he pretended to be someone else, it wasn’t evidence of anything else. Their best suggestion was to go to the hospital in case any bodily evidence was still.
I was disappointed and out of options, so I went to the hospital.
After that, I dragged my tired body home.
As soon as I opened the door, Harper was right there,
wringing her hand anxiously.
“Where have you been?! You didn’t answer any of my calls!”
I looked at my phone. Sure enough, there they were.
I’d been so focused on watching the news and checking the surveillance video in the hotel that I hadn’t even noticed any missed calls.
“Oh, I went out for a walk in the mall. It was noisy, so I didn’t hear my phone.”
Actually, I’d been sleeping so soundly that I hadn’t heard anything. But I didn’t want Harper to worry, so I tried to play it off casually. Hopefully, Harper was happy enough to see that! was alive and okay, her wolf wouldn’t notice anything amiss.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to your honeymoon in Malaysia with Damian today? Why are you here?”